MyCareer.com.au

Americans prefer many things offline

History teacher Matt Baird uses the internet regularly - but when searching for certain books, he prefers flipping through card catalogues at the library. College student Shakira Williams is online about an hour a day - but she shops for clothes in stores.

They are not alone. The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released results of a survey suggesting that even though millions of people go online for a host of everyday activities - shopping, correspondence and banking, to name just a few - they still prefer doing most of those things offline and in person.

"We haven't yet reached the point where the internet is driving these daily engines," said Deborah Fallows, the Pew senior research fellow who wrote the survey report.

Fallows noted that while consumers like using the internet, they are often more comfortable with traditional ways of doing routine tasks, or they find old-fashioned methods more efficient.

In some cases, she said, human interaction remains necessary, and certain Web transactions may be too complicated for some consumers.

Take online banking. "On the one hand it's so efficient to do it online, but sometimes you have to go to the bank to talk to people," Fallows said.

To pay bills and transfer funds online, "you also have to trust the internet and be facile in doing online interactions," she said.

The survey looked at 18 common online activities, including such things as communicating with friends, listening to music and getting weather reports.

Of the 18 activities, online Americans chose the real-world alternative more often than the virtual alternative for 17 of them. The lone exception: Among internet users who look for maps or driving directions, 56 per cent of respondents said they do so exclusively online.

As some consumers surveyed told Fallows, "Never again will I try to find the map under the car seat."

And while tonnes of information can be accessed quickly online, it is not always the best place to conduct complicated research.

For instance, Baird, who teaches history at Abington Friends School in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, said he has found it easier to look through card catalogues at libraries than to surf the internet when he's searching for history experts and books.

"Increasingly in my profession, a lot of resources are on the Net," said Baird, 43. "The difficulty is finding them."

The Pew report also found that while young adults, ages 18 to 29, have a higher regard for the internet than older people, their attitude did not translate to higher usage.

Younger people "really liked the idea of the internet," Fallows said, "but when you looked at what they did, their behaviour didn't match up. One of the factors is that this age group, while they're technologically savvy, is transient. They move around a lot and lose their internet connection. They don't have routines."

Williams, 19, who is going into her junior year at Howard University, said she uses the internet about an hour a day to check email and do research. She had been researching student loans online at the ING Direct cybercafe in Philadelphia.

"I'm not online that much," Williams said. "I'm not into surfing. I don't shop online. I can't see the clothes. How do I know that's what they're going to send?"

Charles Forster, 22, a graphic designer who recently graduated from Drexel University, said he typically goes online a few hours each day, often to sell merchandise on eBay. He does some banking online, but finds it too difficult to pay bills that way.

He also prefers shopping in person. "I like the tactile experience," he said.

The survey also suggested that the internet has not yet emerged as a dominant entertainment medium, particularly for video. Just 16 per cent of those surveyed said they have watched videos, previews and cartoons online, and four per cent said they do that activity exclusively online. Eighty-four per cent of the internet users surveyed said they watch videos, previews and cartoons only offline.

Fallows said the technology for streaming movies over the internet is not sophisticated enough yet.

"Think about the quality of the experience," she said. "Would you watch a movie on the internet, or read a book on the internet? In some ways, the internet will never catch up."

Still, Fallows said, she was surprised that the internet had not made greater inroads into people's lives, although she predicted that it would in the future.

"It's like watching an evolution unfold, when you think how new all of this is," she said. "You can see it's taking a direction."